A Place to Call Home

Unlike most forms of racing, RallyCross® doesn’t have the luxury of competing on established racetracks or existing roads. RallyCross requires open spaces such as grass fields, farmlands, fairgrounds or undeveloped properties. Finding such places is often challenging for RallyCross organizers, even though RallyCross events are good for local communities and landowners. If hosting a race sounds appealing to you or possibly somebody you know, please take a moment to read the details below.

RallyCross creates increased traffic to nearby businesses. The average RallyCross participant spends $600 per weekend on food, gas, lodging and entertainment. Most racers bring along friends and family for fun, support and camaraderie, often turning a race day into a weekend stay. RallyCross also draws participants from a wide geographic area, creating new customers for surrounding businesses. Those new customers represent a wide demographic of people, most of whom are married homeowners with an average household income of over $130,000 per year.

RallyCross events present no financial risk to hosting landowners or local communities. RallyCross is relatively low in speed and prioritizes safety over competition, but in the unlikely event of an incident, SCCA provides comprehensive general and liability insurance coverage that exonerates landowners of all financial obligations. SCCA also ensures that all owner rules and local ordinances are strictly honored.

RallyCross does not require any involvement from landowners other than a place to compete. Because RallyCross is a work-to-race event, it provides its own labor teams that take care of things like monitoring entry, set-up, race management and tear-down. RallyCross also brings its own equipment and resources, such as generators, garbage cans and porta-potties. Unlike most forms of racing, cars run individually and compete against the clock rather than race together as a group. This increases safety and reduces the amount of land required. When necessary, water trucks are used to minimize dust picked up by the cars. Organizers and participants also clean up after themselves so nothing is left behind for landowners to deal with.

The end result is a seamless relationship that involves little to no effort on the part of landowners outside of simply receiving a check for the use of their land. One way to increase the level of compensation above that of just hosting a race is to allow onsite camping before and/or after race day. This reduces travel requirements for participants, which in turn creates greater visits to nearby businesses.

All regions strive to develop long term, financially sustainable relationships with landowners that provide years of racing action. This is where you come in. Do you know of a place where your local SCCA® group could have some fun in the dirt? If so, please find and contact your local SCCA region at https://www.scca.com/regions.